Price Pfister Under the State’s Gun : Lawsuit: Pacoima plumbing manufacturer faces a major challenge from the results of lead tests on its faucets.

Price Pfister Inc., a major plumbing-supplies maker in Pacoima, is apparently hurting from publicity surrounding the lead that its faucets leave in drinking water.

Last month the state attorney general filed suit against Price Pfister, and more than 20 other major faucet companies, for selling products that leach too much lead into water. The suit is intended to force manufacturers to stop selling these faucets, or substantially reduce the lead in their products.

But any changes could be painfully costly, especially for companies like Price Pfister because of the antiquated manufacturing method it uses.

Rivals say it could cost Price Pfister Inc., the nation’s third-largest faucet maker, tens of millions of dollars to overhaul its 25-year-old plant to makes substantial changes in its manufacturing process. “This could put the plant out of business,” said Manuel Barboso, business agent of the Teamster local that represents Price Pfister’s 1,500 manufacturing workers in Pacoima.

One reason the lawsuit is a big headache for Price Pfister is that the suit was based on lab tests of 19 faucet brands, and Price Pfister’s produced the second-highest amount of lead in drinking water. That’s 150 times above the stringent level set by California’s Proposition 65, a 1986 law that bans the discharge of toxic substances into drinking water.

Competitors and analysts said Price Pfister, and at least one other faucet maker--Chicago Faucet Co., whose faucet produced the most lead in drinking water in the laboratory study--use an old technique of sand casting that requires twice as much lead to make faucets than more modern methods.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit already appears to have hurt Price Pfister, which markets to the high-end residential plumbing market.

“There’s been a shift away from that product,” along with other brands showing high lead results, said Ian Price, general manager of Larry & Joe’s, a Northridge-based retailer of four plumbing supply stores. Price noted that the shift to brands with lower lead tests represented just 10% to 15% of his customers. “But in time,” he added, “I believe that concerns will grow.”

Price Pfister, with estimated annual sales of between $125 million and $150 million, contends that the lawsuit hasn’t affected its business overall. And most retailers, including Home Depot, a major distributor of Price Pfister’s lines, agree that the average consumer is far more interested in the design and price of a faucet than how much lead it leaves in water.

“At this time, I’m not sure consumers know much about this,” acknowledged Rana Arons, a spokesperson at Consumer Reports in New York. But in its February issue, Consumer Reports warned about dangers of lead in drinking water, and publicity is likely to increase with a federally sponsored lead awareness campaign.

Doug Martinez, Price Pfister’s marketing director, says his company meets current federal standards for lead content in its faucets. “We feel our products are very safe and don’t cause health hazards.”

The Environmental Protection Agency requires that manufacturers use no more than 8% lead in their faucets, but there is no federal standard for the amount of lead from faucets that is leached into drinking water. Analysts say that is likely to change now that California has filed suit.

Earlier this month, leading manufacturers of ceramic dishes agreed to pay $2 million and reduce the lead in their products after the state attorney general filed a suit in 1991 under Proposition 65. The ceramic manufacturers also agreed to put warning labels on the products.

“California may set the standard for the nation in faucets also,” said Julie Duncan, a scientist for the Environmental Law Foundation in Oakland, which along with the Natural Resources Defense Council of San Francisco, filed their own suit against the faucet companies.

That lawsuit, expected to be consolidated with the state’s, names more than two dozen of the 50 U.S. faucet makers that make and sell 40 million faucets a year.

Raymond Kennedy, president of the building products group at Masco Corp., the nation’s biggest faucet manufacturer, said the industry could soon set its own standard, which probably will be between 4 and 7 micrograms. If so, based on the lawsuit’s lab tests, 16 of the 19 faucets tested would fail those guidelines.

The EPA says tap water accounts for 20% of a person’s exposure to lead--a metal that is present in dishes, paint and soil, and over time can lead to a range of health problems, including high blood pressure in adults and impaired development in children. Studies suggest that almost one out of every five homes in the United States have dangerous levels of lead in drinking water. Experts believe faucets contribute about 20% of the substance in tap water. Other sources are lead service lines and lead solder in copper pipes in home plumbing systems.

If a new lead standard is set for faucet makers, Price Pfister faces the problem of updating its antiquated sand-casting manufacturing method.

Most faucets contain brass--an alloy of copper, zinc and lead. Faucets are cast by pouring molten metal into a mold, then allowing it to cool and solidify, and the lead helps plug up pores, making the faucet watertight.

But in the sand-casting method--where sand is part of the mold--the brass cools fast and typically requires more lead. Analysts say Price Pfister’s faucets probably contain 6% to 7% lead. This compares with less than 3% for other manufacturers that use two newer methods--permanent-mold casting, or by cutting the brass with a machine.

In the lab study, Masco’s Peerless brand had the lowest lead content, while its Delta brand ranked third lowest. Masco does not use sand casting. “Casting is a black art,” Kennedy said. Masco’s Delta and Peerless brands account for about 30% of the estimated $1.5 billion in domestic faucet sales a year. “Some of us have been able to move faster,” Kennedy said, noting that a manufacturing overhaul would be a huge investment for Price Pfister.

Another brand, American Standard, had the second-best results among the 19 faucets tested. Jim Datka, vice president at American Standard, said his company spent tens of millions of dollars to convert from sand casting to permanent mold and machining, enabling his company to reduce its lead content to an average 2% to 3% lead in its faucets.

Datka believes that other companies continue to use sand casting because it has lower operating costs than using a permanent mold casting. Such a conversion would require purchasing molds, machines and perhaps a new foundry, redesigning the product and worker retraining.

(Despite their lower test results, both Masco and American Standard were included in the state’s suit.)

Martinez, of Price Pfister, acknowledged that most of his company’s faucets are made by sand casting, although he said Price Pfister also uses some permanent mold and machining techniques. “We have programs in place to reduce the lead content,” he said.

Martinez declined to discuss its strategy in fighting the lawsuit. But in a recent letter sent to its sales representatives, Price Pfister challenged the validity of the lab test, conducted by Richard Maas, director of the Environmental Quality Institute of the University of North Carolina in Asheville, N.C.

Price Pfister’s letter said that the results were misleading because Maas tested only one kitchen faucet from each manufacturer, that the tests were conducted under elaborate laboratory conditions and that Maas used new faucets, which are likely to leach more lead than faucets that have been in use for some time.

Maas, an aquatic chemist, said the test “would put a burden on Price Pfister to show that the model used wasn’t representative.” Maas added that last April he conducted a separate test of a Price Pfister bathroom faucet for a competitor. That test, he said, showed the faucet produced an average of 8.5 micrograms of lead in a liter of drinking water--also above the California standard.

Mike Schock, an EPA chemist who has researched drinking water problems for 15 years, said of Price Pfister’s response: “They’ve got some fairly legitimate points, but they’re using it as a crutch. How many faucets do you need to test?” he asked.

Other faucet makers and Dick Church, a spokesman for the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute, a Chicago area trade group that represents 50 faucet makers, said they had no reason to question the validity of Maas’ study. But Church said that Proposition 65’s standard is too stringent.

Church said that the industry for years has been seeking a substitute material for lead, and that has included researching arsenic, bismuth and silicon bronze. But he said it’s unclear what dangers those substitutes may pose.